Following Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision last week to purge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC's) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and appoint his own replacements, the 17 ousted experts are hitting back at the arguments behind the cull.

Trust in the ACIP—which advises the CDC on how best to leverage vaccines and prophylactic monoclonal antibodies for the public—is not nearly as eroded as RFK Jr. has suggested, the former ACIP members wrote in an editorial published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Furthermore, the panel has historically ranked among the “most stringent and transparent of the federal committees,” thanks to an extensive vetting process designed to root out and continuously monitor for conflicts of interest, the authors wrote.

While RFK Jr. argued that last week’s firings were necessary to remove experts beholden to the pharmaceutical industry, the decision to swiftly slot in eight new ACIP members—several of whom are known vaccine critics—flies directly in the face of the policies that have overseen membership for decades, the dismissed panelists argued.

It has historically taken up to two years for prospective ACIP members to be vetted and approved, they noted.

RFK Jr. announced the dismissal of all 17 former sitting members of the ACIP last Monday, touting plans to replace the outgoing roster with “new members currently under consideration.” In justifying the decision, the HHS chief pointed to lack of public trusts in vaccines, arguing that the move was intended to help restore “public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.”

The committee has been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccines,” RFK Jr. wrote of the decision in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal last week.

But to hear the ousted ACIP experts tell it, RFK Jr.'s “destabilizing” decision—and others like it challenging vaccine policy in the U.S.—“may roll back the achievements of U.S. immunization policy, impact people’s access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put U.S. families at risk of dangerous and preventable illness.”

“The abrupt dismissal of the entire membership of the ACIP, along with its executive secretary, on June 9, 2025, the appointment of 8 new ACIP members just 2 days later, and the recent reduction of CDC staff dedicated to immunizations have left the US vaccine program critically weakened,” the former ACIP members wrote. “The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence.”

In his WSJ op-ed, RFK Jr. defined the current relationship between U.S. citizens and health agencies as a “crisis of public trust.”

The former ACIP members countered that claim by noting that 99 of every 100 kids in the U.S. have received at least some ACIP-recommended vaccines by the age of 2, citing an ongoing national immunization survey through HHS’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

“This does not suggest the population is so distrustful that it warrants dismantling the process by which vaccines have been recommended,” they argued.

RFK Jr. also highlighted previous ACIP members’ financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine makers, in rationalizing the cull.

“The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt. Most likely aim to serve the public interest as they understand it,” he wrote. “The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.”

Regarding those alleged conflicts of interest, the former ACIP members sought to dispel suspicion by laying out the extensive screening process required to join the panel.

Proposed members often submit letters of support from other experts and peers, complete interviews and background checks and disclose any financial ties that could challenge their impartiality. Once part of the committee, members agree to ongoing ethics monitoring and disclosure throughout their time at the ACIP, the former panelists explained.

While the HHS strategy seeks to appoint ACIP members who can “exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry," the ousted members wrote that RFK Jr.'s dismantling effort ignored those same qualities that “precisely characterized the now-dismissed members of the ACIP.”

The former panelists concluded with an appeal to the Trump administration’s fascination with government efficiency, laying out data to illustrate what’s at stake if the U.S.’ vaccine policies go sideways.

Routine vaccination of more than 100 million kids between 1994 and 2023 “likely prevented around 508 million lifetime cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, at a net savings of $540 billion in direct costs and $2.7 trillion in societal costs,” the dismissed experts stressed.

Since firing the former ACIP members, RFK Jr. has appointed several new members of his own. Some he's selected have ties to vaccine litigation or have gained prominence through the spreading of mRNA vaccine misinformation. The panel is slated to meet from June 25-27, according to the HHS.